Archive for Daily Graphings

Henderson Alvarez isn’t the best starter on the Marlins, obviously. He isn’t the second-best either, unless you really dislike Nathan Eovaldi. Tom Koehler has his supporters, and a lower ERA. Andrew Heaney is coming, and so is Justin Nicolino. If you’re looking for young pitching, the Marlins have lots of it, some younger than Alvarez, others with more talent. And yet here we are, in our second Marlins-related post of the last 24 hours — let it never be said that we only love the big-market teams — focusing on Miami’s mid-rotation starter, because he might just be the most fascinating player that no one seems to know about, for just so many different reasons.

Alvarez, of course, shut out the Mets on Tuesday night, his second shutout of the season, his third in his last eight starts, and we’ll get to that in a second. But first, think about what we knew about him already. He is, so far as I can find, the only player in the history of professional baseball to have the first name of “Henderson.” He’s one of the only players to participate in a political protest outside his own clubhouse. (Not against the Marlins, as justifiable as that would be.) He is, I imagine, the only pitcher to have a novelty windup for the first pitch of every game:  Read the rest of this entry »

In the interest of showing some accountability, I’d like to remind you of something. Before the season started, the Marlins projected to be worst in baseball at catcher. They projected to be worst in baseball at first base, and they also projected to be worst in baseball at second and third base, and they projected to be second-worst in baseball at shortstop. They were, basically, projected to be Giancarlo Stanton, Jose Fernandez, and 23 members of the community in good standing. At this writing, the Marlins are third in baseball in position-player WAR, and they’re tied in third in wRC+. It’s not quite like if the Astros were good, but it isn’t dissimilar.

A fifth of the way through the season, feelings about the Marlins are complicated and conflicting. On the one hand, they’re an easy, appealing team to root for, with a lot of young, energetic, lesser-known talent. They’re a feel-good story and an obvious bandwagon candidate. On the other hand, it can be tricky to separate a team from its ownership, and for certain reasons it might work to baseball’s greater benefit to have the Marlins fall flat on their faces every year. You want to root for the Marlins, but you don’t want to side with Jeffrey Loria. It’s a good and bad thing when sports make you think.

But as long as we’re thinking about the Marlins, let’s address all that hitting. Just a year ago, the Marlins were an offensive catastrophe, and a catastrophe offensively. They were supposed to be bad again in 2014. They’ve been anything but, to this point, so one has to wonder: what does this mean? Just how wrong have we been?

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An essential aspect of any projection system that’s worth a damn is the integration of minor-league data into same — and the translation of that minor-league data to its major-league equivalent (MLE). The Steamer projection system, being worth several of damns, produces MLEs for what appears to be almost every minor-leaguer who exists — and probably some who even don’t.

Yesterday, I asked Steamer owner and operator Jared Cross for the MLE hitting data that’s currently being utilized for the production of Steamer’s rest-of-season and updated forecasts. What follows are four leaderboards featuring that data — specifically, of the MLE batting leaders by various, hopefully useful, criteria.

The first two leaderboards feature minor-league batting leaders (first all of them, and then just prospect-aged one) by translated wOBA. The second pair of leaderboards feature minor-league leaders by translated FIB* — a wOBA estimator (discussed here) which accounts only for home runs, walks, and strikeouts and which has some value insofar as those metrics become stable at least 1,000 plate appearances before BABIP (which metric influences wOBA considerably).

Below the aforementioned leaderboards, followed by some brief comments of varying quality.

MLE Leaderboard: All Minor-League Hitters by wOBA
Below are the top-20 minor-league batters by translated wOBA, according to Steamer (min. 50 PA).

MLE Leaderboard: Prospect-Age Minor-League Hitters by wOBA
Here are the top-20 minor-league batters aged 24-or-under by MLE wOBA, according to Steamer (min. 50 PA).

MLE Leaderboard: All Minor-League Hitters by FIB*
Here are the top-20 minor-league batters by MLE FIB* — i.e. a wOBA estimator which accounts only for home runs, walks, and strikeouts — according to Steamer (min. 50 PA):

MLE Leaderboard: Prospect-Age Minor-League Hitters by FIB*
Here are the top-20 minor-league batters aged 24-or-under by MLE FIB* — i.e. a wOBA estimator which accounts only for home runs, walks, and strikeouts — according to Steamer (min. 50 PA):

Brief Comments of Varying Quality:

• With regard to overall MLE wOBA leader Kyle Roller, here’s who Kyle Roller is: an eighth-round selection by the Yankees in 2010 out of East Carolina University. And here’s who else: a prospect who’s always (a) been old for his levels and (b) produced above-average offensive lines relative to his leagues.
• Despite leading all prospect-age hitters by translated wOBA, Seattle infield prospect Gabriel Noriega’s line at Triple-A Tacoma is also mostly informed by batted-ball outcomes. Indeed, he hasn’t recorded an above-average offensive line since 2008, in the Rookie-level Appalachian League.
• That said, other Seattle infield prospect Chris Taylor — 16th among all minor-league hitters by translated wOBA and just fifth among prospect-age minor-league hitters — received the 38th-best WAR projection among rookie-eligible players before the season.
• Among the top prospect-age hitters by translated FIB* is Jose Ramirez, which Cleveland infield prospect (a) was recently promoted to the majors and (b) JD Sussman considered briefly in Monday’s edition of the Prospect Watch.
• Do you even Mookie Betts?

The sport of baseball, at the major league level, is changing in many ways. The quickly escalating trend in strikeout rate has been well documented, and we’re now several years into a cycle where pitching and defense rule the day, but the league is evolving in other ways as well. Catchers are now hitting better than ever, for instance, and the lack of offense combined with the simultaneous shift in what teams value behind the plate may be leading to a renaissance of the stolen base.

As I noted in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, the success rate of stolen bases in 2014 is currently higher than it has ever been in MLB, and this isn’t simply a continuation of a shift towards conservative baserunning and the protection of precious outs. League caught stealing rates have been trending down for several decades as teams have learned that the hyper-aggressive running of the 1980s was likely counterproductive to run-scoring, but stolen base attempts are actually up this year relative to last year, even while the rate of runners getting thrown out continues to drop.

But even looking at league wide trends can obscure things a bit, as a large majority of players have no interest in attempting a stolen base no matter who the pitcher/catcher tandem might be, and changes in base stealing will be concentrated within a small subset of the player population. So, let’s just look at what we’ve seen among those who run the most.

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When discussing the positive surprises of the first month of the 2014 baseball season, the words “Milwaukee Brewers” and “Charlie Blackmon” are sure to come up very early in the conversation. While Blackmon has clearly not been the most valuable player on his own club – Troy Tulowitzki says hi – he does deserve every bit of attention and scrutiny that has come his way. Who is Charlie Blackmon? Where did he come from, figuratively? What is he, and where might he be going? Let’s look at the track record and attempt to make some educated guesses. Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Tomlin will be on the mound tonight for the Indians. It will be the 29-year-old right-hander’s first start in a Cleveland uniform since he underwent Tommy John surgery late in the 2012 season. The opportunity is well-earned. Tomlin has thrown 17 scoreless innings in his past two outings for Triple-A Columbus and has a 2.06 ERA overall.

Tribe fans can expect to see a revamped-velocity version of the pitcher who went 12-7, 4.25 in 2011. Tomlin still relies on cutters and command – he’ll never be confused with a fire-baller – but he’s throwing harder than he has at any point in his life. More importantly, he’s throwing free and easy.

“The injury prevented me from doing the things I need to do,” Tomlin said. “In 2011, maybe a month after the All-Star break, I started feeling like something wasn’t right. I tried to pitch through it late in 2011 and early 2012, but couldn’t command the ball and couldn’t cut it when I wanted to. I didn’t have the extension to get the ball down and away to righties. Subconsciously, I knew it was going to hurt when I did that, so I kind of cut the ball off trying to get it there. It got to the point where righties could eliminate a pitch away and sit middle in, and lefties knew I was going to work away. When a hitter can take away one side of the plate against me, it’s going to be tough for me to compete. Now I’m able to get the ball to that side and move pitches around to keep hitters off balance. That’s my game.”

Tomlin’s radar gun readers are also healthier. His fastball sat in the upper 80s before the surgery. Now it’s north of 90 mph.

“My velocity has crept up a little bit,” Tomlin said. “I’ve been 91-93 throughout the game with my fastball. My arm speed is better since the surgery. The crispness of my pitches is back to what they were before. Right now I feel like I’m a 15 or 16-year-old kid playing catch again. It doesn’t hurt, I don’t feel it, I don’t think about it. I just take the ball and pitch.”

Tomlin was reminded in spring training that he still has to “pitch” to be effective. He’s never been a power guy and a little extra octane isn’t going to change that.

“I got myself hurt against that Abreu guy with the White Sox,” Tomlin said. “I got him down 1-2 and tried to blow a fastball by him, in. I basically tried to throw the ball too hard – I guess I was overconfident – and left it over the plate. He hit it pretty good. That’s something I had to learn in spring training: How to hone in my new-found velocity and new-found feeling. I can throw pretty hard right now – at least for me – but throwing the ball by someone isn’t my game. I need to set them up to where 89-90 is still effective. It’s about making a quality pitch and missing a barrel, not lighting up the radar gun or trying to get too cute with my fastball.”

Tomlin’s cutter is his most attractive offering. It is also the shapeliest. Thanks to his rebuilt arm, he can tempt hitters with it in two different ways.

“I’m able to do things with my cutter now,” explained Tomlin. “I’m able to make it move horizontally if I want it to. If I get a guy 1-2 with a fastball, I can make it a little bigger. I also have one with more of a slider depth to it. Basically, I’m throwing two different cutters – one more horizontal to miss the barrel and one with a little more depth to try to get ground balls, maybe even a swing-and-miss. But for me, the cutter is a pitch to get weak contact early in the count to keep my pitch count low.”

Tomlin’s repertoire includes a curveball. It’s his third-best pitch and yet another that’s been rejuvenated by his surgery.

“My curveball is the pitch that’s probably been helped the most,” Tomlin said. “Again, I’m not thinking about it. I can grip it without that feeling of ‘I hope it doesn’t hurt.’ The conviction I have behind all of my pitches is the biggest change. It’s not like it was when I was struggling and my arm was bothering me a little bit. Not to make excuses, or anything like that, but the conviction I had then is nothing near what I have now.”

Understand, immediately: Mike Trout is currently first in the American League in WAR. In the majors, he’s sandwiched between two Rockies, one surprisingly healthy and one surprisingly awesome, and Trout’s current season pace puts him at 13 WAR, which would eclipse what he’s already done, and what he’s already done has been basically impossibly good. That Mike Trout doesn’t lead the majors in WAR isn’t a reflection of Trout; it’s a reflection of, hey, sample sizes, and also, don’t forget about Troy Tulowitzki, who is also amazing.

But let’s talk about something, just because it’s interesting. Trout is so good, so almost perfect, that we’re at heightened awareness when something might not be right. At the moment, he’s running an extraordinary 161 wRC+, which is an almost exact match for his career mark. But behind that summary number is another number that doesn’t look like the numbers that’ve come before it. What I’m referring to inspired an article in the LA Times.

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As promised a while ago, our Playoff Odds page is, in time, going to feature the old Cool Standings functionality, where you’d be able to click on a team and track its past odds day by day. That way you’d be able to monitor winning and losing streaks, as well as, somewhat indirectly, the impact of injuries and acquisitions. I suspect that it’s going to become one of FanGraphs’ more popular tools.

As promised a while ago, the Cool Standings functionality is coming in time, and that time remains in the future. It’s a priority, but it’s not a top priority, and the result is posts like these, periodic check-ins on how the odds have changed since the start of the season. On April 4, when I did this the first time, the Mariners’ odds were up about eight percentage points, and the Angels’ odds were down about ten. What does the picture look like today, on May 5? Let’s dive right in.

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In one way, CC Sabathia is having the best season we’ve seen him have in years. In another, much more real way, he’s having the worst season of his long and valuable career. Baseball is a weird game sometimes.

When you look at the current ERA standings, from worst to first, a few things jump out at you. (Yes, besides, “ERA is dumb,” because for the moment this is more about what has happened than what might have happened.) You see Kevin Correia and Ricky Nolasco showing absurdly low strikeout numbers (along with Kyle Gibson, the Twins have the three lowest K% pitchers, because Twins) and you understand that pitching to contact in front of a lousy defense might not result in runs being prevented. You see a lot of high BABIP (I see you, Homer Bailey’s .385), and guys who have had a disaster start or two that inflate the number (Bartolo Colon), and guys who either can’t miss bats (John Danks) or throw strikes (John Danks) and find that the end result is poor (John Danks). As it turns out, there’s a lot of different ways to allow runs to score in Major League Baseball.

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